If you are starting your Brand Strategy, your business life is about to get easier.
Your brand identity is not your advertisements. It’s not your social media posts or the colors you use on your website. Your brand identity is the playbook you use to create those assets. Your brand identity doesn’t give you something you don’t already have. Your Brand Strategy gets what you do out into the world to the people you want to serve in the right (consistent and clear) way.
Your brand strategy is the ‘secret formula’ of your brand—it’s the components that create brand equity in your industry (and payment notifications in your inbox!). Your brand strategy is a document in which you articulate the core components of your brand: your why, your how, your uniqueness, your personality, your ideal client and your brand insights.
If you’re early days in your business or just getting started on your Brand Strategy, here are the first three brand pillars I recommend identifying. I’d love to help you. If you need help, email me.
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Identify your uniqueness
Consumers are busy and are inundated with choices, so they only notice what they perceive as new or different. If it’s not perceived as different, human brains are hardwired to ignore it. Therefore, you need to stand out to be noticed. What makes you different is called your brand points-of-difference or your differen- tiated advantages. Identifying your uniqueness answers this question: ’Why should I give YOU my money’.
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DefIne your Personality
Now that you can explain why people should give you their money, let’s figure out how you’re going to sound while talking to them about it.
Think of your one friend who knows who she is and what she’s about. Your brand should be that distinct. You should be able to send a piece of copy you’re writing along with a couple of competitors’ copy to a close friend or family member and ask them to pick out which one is your brand. If they have to stop and think about it, there’s a strong chance you haven’t defined your brand personality well.
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Explain your HOW
Brands that really connect with clients articulate messages that are distinct and memorable, often in the shape of stories that tell consumers what the brand stands for, i.e. what its values are. If you can’t explain what you stand for, you can’t connect. and if you can’t connect, you can’t grow.Your brand’s values must be conveyed on web pages, social media posts, call to action buttons, product descriptions, automated follow-up emails, blog posts and more. all your words either engage or disengage your potential clients. If you want to engage, understand and explain your how.
Customers have two drivers: their functional needs and their emotional needs. amazon & Walmart solve a functional need: lowest price. You’re not amazon or Walmart (yet?) so you need to solve an emotional need to succeed.
since people don’t buy what you do, they buy how you do it, you need to explain Your How, which answers the following question for your client/customers. “WHY SHOULD I CARE?”